Renaissance Foundation warns Slidstvo.Info journalists about dangers of "license for absolute truth"

The International Renaissance Foundation announced its disappointment related to response of the Slidstvo.Info journalists to substantiated criticism of their investigation of the offshore companies owned by the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko. This statement was published at the foundation’s website.

The Foundation mentions that the journalists' "disease" of "having a license for absolute truth" is not only against the guidelines of balanced presentation of information, but also undermines the very core of freedom of press, opening gates for a wide variety of manipulations and damaging information publications.

The Foundation publication mentions that the journalists published the fact of the President of Ukraine being a beneficiary of an offshore company, yet failed to provide a fair evaluation of this fact. Also, in response to criticism the journalists started to give self-justification arguments, instead of admitting their mistakes and violations of journalists standards they committed. For example, although the fact of existence of such offshore company is firmly established, its connection or affiliation with the President's company "Roshen" is not proven, just like the claim that the offshore company was created for evading taxation. The Foundation release also notes that tendency to give black-and-white evaluation to facts is damaging for the progress of the country in general as it feeds the general public’s aggressive incompetence and promotes populism.